Dylan Thomas was inspired by his short but productive time in Ceredigion,
especially by its lush landscape

Of the various eras of Dylan Thomas’s life and career – the Swansea childhood, the golden years in Laugharne and the final act in New York – one period is often overlooked: the Ceredigion years.

During the Second World War, Thomas lived between London and Wales, working as a scriptwriter for the Strand Film Company, before finally moving his family to a ramshackle house on the fringe of New Quay in September 1944.

He went on to complete several major works here, including A Refusal to Mourn the Death, by Fire, of a Child in London, plus the radio script Quite Early One Morning, which would later evolve into an early blueprint for Under Milk Wood.

“It was,” says David N Thomas, author of Dylan Thomas: A Farm, Two Mansions and a Bungalow, “one of the most productive periods of his adult life. A second flowering.”

Many of the pieces Thomas developed during this time were heavily inspired by the country lanes and characters of Ceredigion – especially the River Aeron’s wooded valley.

Passing tiny farm estates, lost-in-time chapels and rustic village pubs, these are the roads where Dylan would join the local vet, Tommy Earp, on his rounds of the farms, gathering material for his stories from the visits.

It’s an area that still holds much of its yesteryear appeal and is well worth exploring.

Between 1941 and 1943, wife Caitlin and the children spent much of the time staying with Thomas’s old childhood friend, Vera Killick, at Plas y Gelli in the Aeron Valley, a modest country-house estate located near the hamlet of Tal-sarn.

Thomas would often visit the redwood-shaded house, providing wartime shelter from the bombing of London and Swansea, and Caitlin would borrow ponies from the nearby farm to ride the local byways.

Today, a wooded public footpath leads past the house, now privately owned, towards the banks of the River Aeron, where it is suggested that Dylan’s daughter, Aeronwy, was conceived.

A guided horse trek in July, part of the Dylan Odyssey series of walks, will retrace their journeys with the National Poet of Wales, Gillian Clarke, concluding the day with a talk over afternoon tea at the Brynog Arms Tearooms.

A 25-mile trail around Ceredigion also follows in Dylan’s footsteps, starting at coastal Llanon, moving inland to Tal-sarn, down the Aeron valley to Aberaeron and ending in New Quay. There is, however, little by way of waymarking, so bring a map.

Along the way, look out for the old smugglers’ pub here, The Ship Inn, near Wernddu Farm, the National Trust farm at Llanechaeron and Llanina Point, close to Dylan’s cliff-top family home.

Dylan was inspired by his short but productive time in Ceredigion, especially by its lush landscape. Dylan may be gone but the pristine countryside remains inspirational to this day.